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With upwards of $2.6 billion estimated to be spent on political TV spots in 2014—an increase of 10 percent or more from the last midterm election in 2010—you’d best get ready for the assault on your senses. Only two states have held a primary, and yet federal and gubernatorial candidates have already spent more than $100 million just on television advertising since the start of the fourth quarter in 2014.

Even at this early point in the cycle, political advertising is widespread: Based on records maintained by the Sunlight Foundation, only eight of the nation’s 50 biggest TV markets had no political ad purchases in the first three months of the year.

A wide variety of different groups are getting involved. The Arkansas Senate race, for instance, has already seen some $8 million in television spending, which includes buys from 20 different outside groups. That’s all the more incredible considering that Arkansas is largely a cheap media state and that neither Sen. Mark Pryor, the incumbent Democrat, nor Rep. Tom Cotton, the Republican challenger, has to deal with a competitive primary. This is spending on a race that’s still half a year away.

Americans in their eighth decade can recall a time when TV ads were primitive and fodder for attacks—by the candidates not using TV. Earl Long of Louisiana, who served as governor at times in the 1940s and 1950s, once ridiculed a media-savvy opponent for wearing “pancake make-up” and “$400 suits.” “You know what one of those $400 suits would look like on old Uncle Earl?” Long would shout to his supporters. “Like socks on a rooster!”

Dwight Eisenhower was the first presidential nominee to air an extensive program of paid spots, though many were laugh-inducing; Ike was a brilliant general but couldn’t read cue cards worth a damn. (Take a look at this one, entitled “Bus Driver.”) Adlai Stevenson’s campaign sniffed that a president shouldn’t be sold like “political soap suds.” Whipped in 1952, Stevenson was quick to hire his own Madison Avenue firm for the rematch with Ike in 1956—not that it did him any good. He was defeated by a bigger margin.

Over almost the entire political TV ad era, I’ve watched and studied thousands of these spots, and tried out many in the classroom. There are more books and research papers than anyone can count on the subject, many with conflicting conclusions about what works and why. Do negative ads increase or decrease turnout? Do voters respond better to issue-oriented or personal appeals? Are you better off spending that last precious 10 percent of your war chest on TV or voter contact?

We’ll argue some of those questions another time. For now, in the beginning of the election year, let’s do what we all enjoy—watching and grading a few of the best and worst of the video reaching the big and little screens.

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So Bad It’s Good?

Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) – “North Star”

Many neutral observers thought Pryor’s ad was hokey and amateurish, and the endangered Arkansas senator’s cue-card reading is on a par with Eisenhower’s. (Pryor is even less card-adept in this ad.) Among self-styled sophisticates, Pryor’s calling the Bible his “North Star” seemed like a line that Elmer Gantry might have used. But the Arkansas electorate is very religious. The 2010 exit poll for the contest between then-incumbent Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D) and now-Sen. John Boozman (R) showed 57 percent of Razorback voters were white evangelical Christians, and they went 68-27 percent for Boozman. If Pryor, who has gotten a number of decent polls lately, can cut into presumptive GOP nominee Tom Cotton’s margin with this group, maybe he can avoid Lincoln’s fate. Could this “awful” ad have helped stabilize him?

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A Pig’s Loss Is a Candidate’s Gain

Iowa Senate candidate Joni Ernst (R) – “Squeal”

Even though the spouses of some straying politicians have probably thought about doing it, did you ever expect a political spot to actually mention castration? It can be dangerous to cross a certain line of propriety. Go too far and there’s a backlash; handle it just right and you’ve got a rocket boost for your campaign. On the whole, it looks like Ernst’s gamble paid off. Using the C-word certainly got her nationalmediaattention, and it may be an underestimation to suggest that Ernst received a million bucks of free publicity. In a competitive Hawkeye state GOP primary featuring five candidates, Ernst needed to make a splash and raise her name identification because her main primary competitor is businessman Mark Jacobs. He’s a self-funding candidate who spent 10 times what Ernst did in the first quarter, getting ads up on the air long before she did. The Iowa Republican base is especially conservative, and what better way to get their attention than to talk about cutting pork, figuratively and literally? One more bonus: Ernst’s swine-trimming swagger provides an obvious contrast to presumptive Democratic Senate nominee Bruce Braley, who famously appeared to insult farmers in a widely distributed speech. (By the way, a pig reference worked for another recent Republican candidate, Rep. Ted Yoho, a Florida Republican who scored a primary upset against a GOP incumbent in 2012.)

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Timing Is Everything in Sex and Politics

Ohio House candidate J.D. Winteregg – “When the Moment is Right”

Take everything I said about Joni Ernst’s ad and reverse it. Speaker John Boehner’s GOP primary challenger, J.D. Winteregg, shows you really can go too far—and you’ve done it when an ad about curing “electile dysfunction” is more offensive than a spot about castration. Originating as a web ad, Winteregg’s spot garnered extensive online and television coverage, “succeeding” in the sense of going viral. However, while this mimicry of the Cialis commercial for erectile dysfunction is amusing at times, it is simply too risqué and offensive, taking name-calling to a new low: “If you have a Boehner lasting longer than 23 years, seek immediate medical attention…” Winteregg has no chance to win anyway, and this spot suggests why.

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Larry J. Sabato is university professor of politics and director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, which publishes the online, free Crystal Ball politics newsletter every Thursday, and a regular columnist for Politico Magazine. His most recent book is The Kennedy Half-Century: The Presidency, Assassination, and Lasting Legacy of John F. Kennedy.